The mysterious inhabitants of Canada

There is ample evidence that we share Canada with another upright walking primate and a sauropod, which has never been officially included in Canada's 80,000 classified animal species.

Cryptozoology is a pseudoscientific discipline that deals with research and attempts to discover unknown species of animals. The word cryptozoology is a compound consisting of Greek words cryptos (κρυπτό) meaning "hidden" and zoology the science of animals. The unknown animals being searched for are called cryptids. Cryptozoology is primarily interested in proving the existence of animals that fall outside of existing qualification schemes or are considered long extinct. It is believed that in addition to the million and a half, known species in the world, there are probably hundreds of unknown, unexplored species.

Many of today's very well-known species, at the beginning of the 20th century, were present only through the stories of the local people. Those stories were doubted until researchers and hunters proved their existence, which was also the case with mountain gorillas.

On the other hand, there are reports of animals that are considered locally known or mentioned in folklore, but their existence is ignored by traditional zoology, because there is no reliable material evidence. 

Okanagan Lake, in southern British Columbia, is said to be home to a type of water dragon called an Ogopogo. This huge lake is 135 kilometers long, up to 5 kilometers wide, and reaches a depth of up to 232 meters. There are countless photos and videos of this Canadian "Loch Ness monster", but there is no solid material evidence to confirm its existence, so this huge and dark lake still hides a mystery and ignites the imagination of the local population and the tourist of the town of Kelowna, which is located on the shore of the lake. According to traditions of the native Indians, who lived in the Okanagan Valley for at least 12,000 years before European fur traders arrived in 1809, the lake is inhabited by Nkakaitk, a water spirit and protector of the lake, a very dark serpentine being with the head of a horse and the horns of a deer. Their present-day descendants claim that the whites, inclined to demonize Native American spiritual beliefs, transformed this idol of theirs into a dragon-like lake monster and renamed it Ogopogo.  The existence of Ogopog has never been proven and to this day remains at the level of Indian legends, eyewitness accounts and skeptics' disputes.

The legend of Sasquatch, myth, or reality?

Among the more fascinating cryptids that cryptozoologists have been searching for many years are numerous legendary humanoids with testimonies and legends in Asia, North America and Siberia such as the yeti, bigfoot and alma. 

Apart from the west coast of America, according to the testimonies of eyewitnesses, bigfoot inhabits the western provinces of Canada, British Columbia and Alberta, and in these areas, they call it Sasquatch. The name is taken from the local population Stsailes, who belong to the Native American tribe. It is described as a mammal of exceptional size with brown fur covering its entire body. It walks on two legs. It is between two and three meters tall and weighs about 250 kilograms. The footprints it leaves behind are nearly 60 centimeters long and 20 centimeters wide. No man or animal moves as quickly and silently through the forest as the Sasquatch.

In Canada, the Sasquatch is known to be most active in the Lake and Harrison River Valley area, Fraser Canyon region, and has also been observed in several locations on Vancouver Island. Witness accounts range from seeing huge footprints, hearing unknown howls, seeing an elusive creature moving through the woods, swimming in a river, or killing livestock for dinner.

The Sasquatch is quite shy, runs away when he is noticed or if a camera appears. It is not known to be vicious, to hunt people when it is hungry, although there are even reports of people kidnapped by this hairy giant who later managed to escape and tell their story.

In the town of Harrison Hot Springs, since 1938, the ‘Sasquatch Days’ event has been held every year in June, where the members of the Indian tribe Sts’ailes gather. And this year, after a two-year break due to the corona virus and the pandemic, members of this tribe gathered to tell Sasquatch legends, organize canoe races, and prepare salmon specialties. The chief of the Sts'ailes tribe, in whose tradition the Sasquatch is considered a central mythical being that gives them spiritual strength, says that this giant cannot be seen by everyone, only exceptional ones who are gifted with a special sense with which they can experience it. He also claims that no one has ever caught Sasquatch because he has superpowers to transform from a physical being into a spiritual entity.

In 2017, the Sasquatch Museum opened in Harrison Hot Springs.  This small museum is full of information about Sasquatch. It contains a rich collection of casts of his large footprints, photographs, eyewitness accounts and Sts’ailes Indian lore. 

John Wison Green (1927–2016) was Canada's preeminent researcher about bigfoot for over 40 years.  Born in Harrison Hot Springs, he graduated from the University of British Columbia and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in New York.  He worked as a journalist at the Globe and Mail and various local newspapers.  He collected a file of over 4,000 reports of encounters with Sasquatch. Green traveled all over the West Coast collecting scientific evidence of Sasquatch’s existence and became the owner of the largest known database of Sasquatch research.  He is the author of some of the best books on the subject: "On the Trail of the Sasquatch," "The Sasquatch Years'' and others that have sold more than 200,000 copies. He was even elected mayor of Harrison Hot Springs in 1963. Green was one of the first to investigate the filming location of the famously controversial 1967 Patterson-Gimlin movie in Bluff Creek, Northern California. This footage, which is available online today and clearly shows a female Bigfoot walking away from the camera's lens, has raised doubts about the authenticity of the footage among some analysts.  Around 250 feature films and documentaries on the topic of bigfoot have been made in the world to date.  

And if, in addition to countless sasquatch tracks, no indisputable evidence has been obtained to date, e.g. living or dead specimens that confirms its existence.  The Sasquatch is undeniably present in Canadian culture through Native American stories as well as prose and films for children and adults. In addition to two other characters, the mascot of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 was Kuachi. This lovable creature is described like this: Kuachi comes from the mysterious forests of Canada, wears blue earmuffs and dreams of being a hockey goaltender." Kuachi loves to travel and learn about the regional dances and cuisines of each place he visits. He wears a camera around his neck wherever he goes."

Since 1982, there has been an active society in Washington; the International Society of Cryptozoology which advocated for the recognition of cryptozoology as an official scientific discipline. The official emblem of the society was the okapi, which was chosen because, although it was well known to the inhabitants of its region, it was unknown to the European scientific community until the English explorer Harry Johnston sent an okapi skin to London. This company was shut down in 2004, and maybe the Sasquatch is one of the reasons for that. Because if cryptozoology were to become a branch of official science, and that science confirmed that on our planet there lives with us apes that walk upright like humans and are not our ancestors, how would the Darwinist theory explain this phenomenon.